Will Buckle become the Nickleback of apparel?

Will Buckle become the Nickleback of apparel? Buckle has an affliction and that is the affliction brand. Affliction shirts were all the rage years ago (costing $50.00-$75.00 or more) but now people who wear them are considered a douchebag. See creeper middle-aged man wearing an over shrunk T-shirt.

The same holds true with the $100.00 bedazzled blue jeans. The clothing market is a fickle one. Last year trends can become this years butt of late-night comedy routines.

Do you really want to be caught wearing this stuff? Worse yet do you want to be holding this stock? You can listen to Nickleback alone and no one will make fun of you. But wear this and you might get ostracized.

Here are a few tidbits to chew on.

Buckle (The) (NYSE:BKE) has shown a rise of 2.6% or 192,208 shares in the short positions. The bets have increased to 7,646,284 shares on February 12,2016 from 7,454,076 shares on January 29,2016. With respect to the floated shares, the shorts are 27.3%. The days to cover are calculated to be 16, using the standard per day volume of 475,534 shares. The information was released by Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc (FINRA) on Wednesday, February 24th after the market close.

The company shares have dropped 35.91% in the past 52 Weeks. On March 23, 2015 The shares registered one year high of $52 and one year low was seen on January 20, 2016 at $26.05. The 50-day moving average is $28.71 and the 200 day moving average is recorded at $33.93. S&P 500 has rallied 9.11% during the last 52-weeks.

On a different note, The Company has disclosed insider buying and selling activities to the Securities Exchange, According to the information disclosed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in a Form 4 filing, the officer (SVP MENS MERCHANDISING) of Buckle Inc, Carlberg Robert M had sold 10,000 shares worth of $291,900 in a transaction dated February 12, 2016. In this transaction, 10,000 shares were sold at $29.19 per share.

Out of 2 analysts covering Buckle Inc (NYSE:BKE), 0 rate it “Buy”, 0 “Sell”, while 8 “Hold”current price 31.77. This means 0% are positive. Buckle Inc was the topic in 8 analyst reports since August 18. Three analysts have made estimates for Buckle’s earnings, with the highest EPS estimate coming in at $1.09 and the lowest estimate coming in at $1.04. Buckle reported earnings per share of $1.25 during the same quarter last year, which would indicate a negative year-over-year growth rate of 14.4%. The firm is scheduled to announce its next quarterly earnings results on Friday, March 11th.

Screams buy me!

The special dividend of $1.00 was nice but was it an attempt to stop the stock slide? We think money would be better put to use elsewhere as this company needs to find itself and better yet find a new clothing trend. Our store checks and chats with managers indicate a not so rosy outlook. If anything, we tend to lean on the short side. Especially if upcoming earnings report causes the stock to pop upward.